Decoding Nigerian Memetic Expressions: Recursive Re-encoding and Youth Resistance in Platform Culture

This article examines four Nigerian memetic expressions, Sapa no fit catch me, No gree for anybody, You go explain taya, and Na you sabi, as cultural texts through Stuart Hall’s encoding/decoding model. Rather than treating them as statistically representative of Nigerian social media, the study uses qualitative, theory-led close reading to investigate how vernacular humour organises meanings of economic precarity, defiance, distrust, exhaustion, and withdrawal. The analysis distinguishes preferred, negotiated, and oppositional readings while extending Hall’s model through the concept of recursive re-encoding, the process by which users interpret a circulating expression and reposition it through reposting, captioning, remixing, or contextual relocation. Findings show that the expressions are politically ambivalent: they may normalise individual endurance and self-responsibility, but they can also expose institutional failure, challenge credibility, and create affective forms of everyday resistance. The article therefore offers a culturally situated account of how decoding becomes renewed encoding in contemporary African digital culture while recognising the limits of resistance claims without direct audience data.